Improvisation, Fake Breasts, Meticulous Counterpoint or Penile Enlargement?
Gosh, they all give such pleasure, but what is morally right?
Recently I’ve been having some conversations with colleagues about improvisation and composition. Composition, after all, is just controlled improvisation, right? Sure, for your concert pieces or cuts on your next bass harmonica album, you may ruminate ideas for months on end and pen doesn’t hit paper until you have a pretty clear idea of where you’re going. But it’s still improvisation – just done very, very slowly. When it comes to my hired gun work though, for the most part, I have no idea what I will write until I sit down to do it. While getting my 13th cup of coffee I’ll contemplate the purpose of the music, maybe the modes and scales likely to achieve that goal, some basic instrumentation or style considerations and then, I just put my sausage links on the keyboard and plunk away. Controlled improvisation. I’ll try this, try that. Narrow down my choices. Make a million decisions.
And then, every once in a while, I nail it. I write the whole damn cue while I’m playing it, from top to bottom. And it works. Theoretically, with a little added orchestration, I should be done with this cue, moving on to the next, one step closer to sharing some quality time with my family.
But because of my Catholic upbringing, I’ve been taught that nothing great comes from anything less than debilitating sacrifice. Nothing great comes from anything less than being crucified for your egotistical desires to write perfect music. Take the easy way out and you rot in bad music hell forever. So what happens when I play through that cue, improvise my way around the dialog and mood of the scene and when I listen back, it works? What happens when there is no need to do it again? No need to throw myself on the sacrificial fire?
Well, I feel a touch guilty that I got off so easy. I feel dirty. And cheap. And not in a dirty cheap good way. After all, isn’t writing music supposed to be hard? All the time?
Without a doubt, some of it is Catholic guilt. But my research says many others feel the same way. As though they haven’t bled enough for it. As though, if they don’t finish a piece of music battered and bruised, they didn’t work hard enough for it. They don’t deserve to be done this easily, this quickly. We’re musicians - and endless repetition, endless hours of practice, is the name of our game.
The dreaded “it can’t be good because I did it in one take” syndrome. One take. Why do those two words have such a negative connotation?
Years ago, I was a music supervisor for Disney and had the pleasure of overseeing a session with Stan Getz. He’d been brought in to play a solo for the film “The Marrying Man.” We sent a car for him (yeah, you get that kind of shit when you’re a Stan Getz) to bring him to Oceanway Studios. He headed right into the tracking room, opened his case up, blew a few warm up notes, glanced at the chart, and said “Roll it.” No “Hi nice to meet you.” No “let me contemplate life and how my morning bowel activities effect the chord changes on your chart” bullshit. He was here to play. You want to socialize, go to a massage parlor.
The engineer hit play. Stan laid his part down. The track ended. Stan started packing up. The engineer leapt out of his chair like it was lunchtime and frantically grabbed the talkback.
“Uh, Stan? Thought we’d get maybe another take on that, you know, as a . . . , well, backup or something, I mean, shouldn’t we do another take?” He sounded like some very important union rule had been broken and we needed to rectify this dire situation before it caused the end of civilization. His pleading sounded as if he was suggesting “Aren’t we supposed to fuck with this thing, try it every which way from Sunday until everyone is just sick of it and no one has any idea what to cut together?”
Stan said, “No. That one felt good.”
The control room was silent. Stan headed back to his limo.
I suppose you would have handled it differently. You would have contradicted Stan Getz and told him the solo he played didn’t feel good? His solo was great. Fantastic. It was everything the track needed. Nothing more, nothing less. Sure it was a rather straight forward blues track. Nothing strange or out of the realm Stan worked in most of the time. Yes, the changes were ones Stan had probably played 50,000 times in his life. Did he nail it? At his level, there never is a “didn’t nail it” moment. There’s only minute degrees of feel and vibe and self fulfillment. There ain’t any wrong notes on his sax. He put all of the combined knowledge of his 60 years of music into that take. Was it the greatest solo ever played? No. But it wasn’t supposed to be. If it had been the world’s greatest solo, then no one would have noticed Alec Baldwin on the screen acting in a movie. Stan’s solo was brilliantly perfect for the intended use of that particular piece of music.
Stan died a few months later. No retakes on that either.
Writing music is like making the toughest decisions of your life, one after another, all day long. Every note, every rhythm, every nuance must be thought about, evaluated and eventually agreed upon and only then, committed to paper or audio. How long you decide to take making those decisions – is yet, another decision.
Lurking at the distant edges of available writing techniques are:
1 - OCD anal retentive, pain in the ass types who will never be satisfied with anything – writing, rewriting, editing, throwing out, fucking with, fucking up, fixing, substituting, polishing, refining, second guessing, pissing on, etc, etc until their original concept is obliterated and unrecognizable and they end up with shit. Or brilliance.
2 – The lazy ass mother fuckers who throw any old damn thing down and just go with it, nary an edit, fix, redo, Mulligan or gimme to be found. This “easy road” leads to absolutely uninspired dreck. Or brilliance.
Before any of you go thinking you’re doing it the wrong way, most of us swing our respective meters between these two extremes - frequently, and without thought, and probably only because swinging our meters feels good. The great thing about art is that the end product has absolutely nothing to do with the process and conditions with which you choose to get there. Whether you feel it necessary to gnaw your tongue off and swallow it in order to get some decent notes on the page or whether smoking a joint and noodling on the piano for 10 minutes is your magic potion for greatness, it doesn’t matter. But we all must choose a path, Grasshopper. Each and every time we create. This has always intrigued me so I’ve spent a shitload of time contemplating my work methods. Graphing, plotting, analyzing, running the equations. Doing all of the dirty work for you lazy fuckers. Lifetimes of research to find out whether more time equals better music.
And the answer I’ve come up with is –
and BTW, you’re getting this wisdom for free here – yeah, you didn’t have to climb some fucking mountain in Tibet and sit with some smelly bearded old fart for it – all you had to do was plop your fat ass down and read some worthless blogs on the internet – do we live in a wonderful world or what?
And the answer is . . . “Who the fuck knows??!!!”
We need to avoid thinking we have only two choices of looking at what we create. If we only put our noses to the table and examine the tiniest of details of our work, deal exclusively with fermi and planck, ensuring that the nuclei of our creations are all in perfect order, we miss what happens when we step away, go all the way to the other side of the room and have a gander at our little bundle of joy. And maybe see the forest.
Chick Corea releases records that are recordings of actual events. He played this music live, no edits, no fixes. If you were there when he played it, you would hear that performance on the CD. Note for note. Glenn Gould chose to edit the shit out of his recordings. Instead of documenting his performance at a particular stage in his life, he perhaps was thinking long term, and wanted what he considered a “perfect” performance to last through the ages.
Who’s right? And if someone is right, that makes someone else wrong? Right?
No. And why do you have to be so argumentative? Can’t you discuss something without getting all pissy? Cuddle up with your anger asshole, you’re sleeping on the fucking couch tonight.
I have some perspective now on some of my early music. What I’ve noticed is that none of the shit that bothered the living hell out of me, at the time I wrote and recorded them, bugs me now. None of it. Amazing! I used to lose sleep over the shit! Stomach aches, Diarrhea, Vomiting. (OK, those last two might have been me screwing up the dosages of my meds). But, heartache. Definitely heartache. Here was my big revelation about my old music . . .
I got a whole NEW set of shit that bugs the living hell out of me.
I’ve grown. Gotten better. Things I didn’t hear before that I hear loud and clear now. Maybe I had my nose resting on the damn manuscript paper and missed the big picture. Maybe I wasn’t experienced enough. But I’ll tell you this, the shit that bugs me now is more encompassing. It’s less miniscule and more esoteric. Things like feel, overall vibe, form, pacing, and development of ideas rather than slight pitch problems, snare EQ, one note in a passage or a vintage spring reverb setting. I can see now where I went wrong in the composition itself. I can see how to make the piece of music 50% better by taking shit out – Yes – I finally learned that the eraser is the composer’s greatest tool! (Thanks Lloyd!)
How good is good enough? Is too good unemotional? Is perfect robotic and inhuman? Do flaws and imperfections make us who we are? Is that sloppy, pattern based, repetitive hard rock guitar solo viewed 732,512 times on YouTube more honest than a 100% quantized synth arpeggiator randomly generating tones?
The important thing in all of this creating, is to be aware of what works when. If we insist on labeling ourselves as the perfectionist who never prints his take until the 11th hour, we set ourselves up to miss the happy accidents, the rare quirks that break old habits, the nuggets of gold in the river, the once in a lifetime Stan Getz solo. Because in the end, when you look back on the hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of creations you had a hand in, when you have essentially stepped back away from your baby the equivalent of the expanse of the universe, the teeny details of how, how long and by what means these were created will have shrunk to imperceptible levels. And you’ll be left with the music.
And good will be good. And bad will be bad. And I hope to God we all have a little bit of both in there.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Dumpster, Goodwill, Garage Sale, Obscurity or Posterity? Your music. Your choice.
A friend of mine called and said he just scored big. I assumed he meant hookers and blow at Black Friday sale prices.
“No” he said. “I picked up some original music. Dirt cheap.”
My stomach turned, familiarly.
“Big deal,” I said, “Original music dirt cheap. Welcome to the world of modern music.”
“No, dude, this is different. This is music by someone famous! I got it at a garage sale, well, more accurately an estate sale. One of those “somebody famous died” yard sales. It’s written by Famous Actor Guy.” (I can’t reveal the details – sworn to secrecy etc. Plus this friend really does have pictures of me not only with a goat but with a very drunk manatee. Now THAT was some crazy shit I’ll tell you what!)
He goes on to tell me Famous Hollywood Actor Guy had died and the family was selling everything. Right here in Bev Hills. On Dead Guy’s own god damn lawn no less. His life’s accomplishments, belongings, memories, underwear, scattered amongst the crab grass and aphids. For pennies on the dollar. You can’t pass up deals like this!
Although my friend was elated, it depressed the shit out of me. Is this what will become of my music after I’ve gone to the great strip club in the sky?
What my buddy purchased for $20 – twenty fucking dollars - FYI your Starbucks tab for this week – was famous guy’s original sheet music. Hand written lyrics. Musical ideas. Sketches. Complete songs. The dead celeb wrote music when he wasn’t acting. Songs. With lyrics. Charts. Pro charts. Done by a famous arranger from way back when. I’ve seen the charts. They’re beautiful. The tunes are nice. Obviously this was more than a hobby to the guy. He finished the songs and then laid out real cold cash to someone well known in the music business to arrange all of them. Was probably planning to book a high-end studio in Hollywood and record the tunes. Maybe with a famous big band. Probably pull in a couple of favors and get some famous singers on the tracks. Shit, he probably wanted to sit in on one of the tunes. Hell, probably had wishes of signing a record deal, putting the record out and climbing the Hit Parade. Changing his business card to read “Actor/Composer.”
Reality sets in. He works his ass off. Career just won’t let up. Gets lucky. But got the family obligations. Can’t turn down that next gig cuz the fickle Hollywood power moguls may never call again. Got bills to pay. This show could be his last. Blah blah blah.
The charts sit on the piano for a couple of years. The maid cleans around them. The pages yellow. His wife nags him and tells him to get the fuckers out of the living room - “They’re cluttering up the place and our guests can’t see my Hummel collection.”
Famous dude sticks them in a box, puts them in a back closet, and as he does, he swears to himself that he will record them as soon as he finishes his next job.
No one touches the box. Not Famous Guy. Not the maid. Not for 30 fucking years. He drops dead. Oops. That wasn’t on the agenda. He’s gone but there’s still his shit everywhere. All over the damn house. The kids start going through it. The box of music gets pulled out. None of them know what it is. Dusty old box with yellowed scribbled black dots. His name at the top.
“Hey, Dad wrote some songs! Cool!”
“Hey, cool! I bet we could get $20 at the estate sale for those!”
Shhh! If you listen carefully, you can hear his dreams being flushed down the toilet. Out of all the successes, the accolades, the honors – you know he went to his grave with this thorn stuck in his side . . .
He never fucking got around to recording his songs.
He meant to. Oh, he tried. Promised himself. Time and time again. Honest. Next week. I will do it. I promise.
Promise broken. Dream crushed.
I don’t blame the kids. Or his wife if she’s still around. Hell, I don’t even blame the buck toothed fourth cousin with a third nipple – or whomever sold his music.
It’s Famous Actor Guy’s fault.
His half baked relatives sold it because it wasn’t presented to them in a state that screamed, “This is important shit and you should always keep it because it meant a lot to me and it’s really, really good.” Third Nipple Cousin went with the cliché – “If it looks like shit, don’t eat it. Sell it for $20.”
It’s always been about presentation. You send out a shitty looking demo and people think shitty music is on it. If your band doesn’t present itself with the right attitude, lighting, makeup and properly front packed tight jeans – you’re next stop is Boise. At the bowling alley. Cleaning balls, bitch. Had our famous actor gotten around to recording his stuff – pressed the albums, with requisite sexy girl on the cover, impeccable recording cut into the vinyl, then his kids would have known it was something. Known it was worthy of posterity. Worthy of honor and respect. Worthy of keeping.
It got me to thinking.
What’s the state of my music now? And then, only because I care so much . . . What’s the state of yours? If you or I were to die tonight, would what we leave behind? Would our music be treated as trash or treasure?
I’m in a kind of halfway house situation on that front. (And a few others, badda bing!) I’ve managed to get a few CDs out there. I’ve documented some stuff that I think is worthy. And then there’s the rest of it. There’s good stuff in there but I haven’t put it in any kind of order so anyone could ever find it. My kids will chuck it. What else are they supposed to do? All those boxes and boxes of crap lying around when we’re laid in the ground. They’ll be overwhelmed. Not with grief, but because you left all this shit for them to clean up! And I’m not even counting the porn! At least they can give that to your gardener who will love it. No, I’m talking about your music. A lot of your music. You’re dreaming if you think cute little Sissy is going to store that shit for decades. I’ve got thousands of, really, dare I say, brilliant underscore cues sitting around on backups, manuscript paper, yellow stickies, cassettes, CDs. I’m not fooling myself. Years from now, my kids aren’t going to curl up on the couch with my grandkids and listen to Dead Grandpa’s score from episode 312 of some cable show they’ve never heard of. No, out of guilt they’ll probably move this steaming pile of intellect from place to place until inconvenience outweighs guilt. Then they’ll rent one of those huge, double ass wide dumpsters and heave the shit in. Jewel cases all cracked and split. CDs glistening in the sun wet with the sex lube they awkwardly found. Scores stained with left over Red Bulls I never got to finish. Rusty coke spoon. Kim Kardashian photos. Days later at the dump, some homeless guy will pick through my music. He’ll stare and study them. Flip through the CDs like he’s at Amoeba. Ponder the names and titles. And then come to the shocking realization that even he can’t come up with a reason to keep it.
Unless you’re famous – like Hank Mancini kind of famous – where some unknown university in Bum Fuck Egypt sends a low level grad student to cart your skidmarks on Hanes back to a shrine in the desert, you’re fucked Maestro.
It hurts to think about it. I know, because we’ve all spent countless hours bleeding rectally to get done what needs to be done. Nobody works harder than the modern composer. Day in, day out. Always trying to do our fucking best. All that wasted time driving across town to blow yet another producer hoping to get that movie or network series. Long nights searching for the lost chord only to end up with the brown note.
Yes. Believe it or not, worthy or not, brilliant or not, there is music that will be thrown out upon our demise. Stepped on, shit on and burnt.
But there is also our “Best of” music. The special stuff. The stuff you love. Somewhere, in everyone’s studio, lies the good shit. It doesn’t matter if it’s a cue from Baywatch or a commercial for Depends™, you know the good shit. We owe it to ourselves to be gathering, planning, recording, packaging and storing our good stuff. Preserving it. Protecting it. Guaranteeing its future.
I’m making a promise I really hope to keep. You should too. All of us should each make a “Best of” CD. If need be, we should make ten different ones. A lifetime box set if you will. Package them up nice. Write some liner notes. Put a picture of yourself on the cover – no matter how fucking ugly you are. No one will ever throw away a “Best of” CD. The title demands, “Keep me around forever.” Go all the way – dedicate it to those who follow in your gene pool.
And that album you’ve always said you would record? Record it! Just fucking do it. Don’t take another job just so you can put a big screen plasma in the guest room shitter. No more excuses. Make it incredible. Call in every favor. Pay a really great graphic designer to make it as beautiful visually as it is sonically. Sell it, don’t sell it. It doesn’t matter. Money is not important. Posterity is important. Respecting your music is important. Documenting your talent is important. Documenting your place and your contribution on this earth is important.
And when you’re long gone, and when one of your loved ones is reluctantly picking through your crap, when their hands land on something you made, something you created, something that would not have existed had you not lived and breathed here on this beautiful planet, they will stop what they are doing. They will play your music. Your music will move them and they will close their eyes and they will think of you. They will thank you. They will not throw it away. They will keep it. And they will listen to it every now and again and they will remember you.
And that is better than $20 at some fucking garage sale.
“No” he said. “I picked up some original music. Dirt cheap.”
My stomach turned, familiarly.
“Big deal,” I said, “Original music dirt cheap. Welcome to the world of modern music.”
“No, dude, this is different. This is music by someone famous! I got it at a garage sale, well, more accurately an estate sale. One of those “somebody famous died” yard sales. It’s written by Famous Actor Guy.” (I can’t reveal the details – sworn to secrecy etc. Plus this friend really does have pictures of me not only with a goat but with a very drunk manatee. Now THAT was some crazy shit I’ll tell you what!)
He goes on to tell me Famous Hollywood Actor Guy had died and the family was selling everything. Right here in Bev Hills. On Dead Guy’s own god damn lawn no less. His life’s accomplishments, belongings, memories, underwear, scattered amongst the crab grass and aphids. For pennies on the dollar. You can’t pass up deals like this!
Although my friend was elated, it depressed the shit out of me. Is this what will become of my music after I’ve gone to the great strip club in the sky?
What my buddy purchased for $20 – twenty fucking dollars - FYI your Starbucks tab for this week – was famous guy’s original sheet music. Hand written lyrics. Musical ideas. Sketches. Complete songs. The dead celeb wrote music when he wasn’t acting. Songs. With lyrics. Charts. Pro charts. Done by a famous arranger from way back when. I’ve seen the charts. They’re beautiful. The tunes are nice. Obviously this was more than a hobby to the guy. He finished the songs and then laid out real cold cash to someone well known in the music business to arrange all of them. Was probably planning to book a high-end studio in Hollywood and record the tunes. Maybe with a famous big band. Probably pull in a couple of favors and get some famous singers on the tracks. Shit, he probably wanted to sit in on one of the tunes. Hell, probably had wishes of signing a record deal, putting the record out and climbing the Hit Parade. Changing his business card to read “Actor/Composer.”
Reality sets in. He works his ass off. Career just won’t let up. Gets lucky. But got the family obligations. Can’t turn down that next gig cuz the fickle Hollywood power moguls may never call again. Got bills to pay. This show could be his last. Blah blah blah.
The charts sit on the piano for a couple of years. The maid cleans around them. The pages yellow. His wife nags him and tells him to get the fuckers out of the living room - “They’re cluttering up the place and our guests can’t see my Hummel collection.”
Famous dude sticks them in a box, puts them in a back closet, and as he does, he swears to himself that he will record them as soon as he finishes his next job.
No one touches the box. Not Famous Guy. Not the maid. Not for 30 fucking years. He drops dead. Oops. That wasn’t on the agenda. He’s gone but there’s still his shit everywhere. All over the damn house. The kids start going through it. The box of music gets pulled out. None of them know what it is. Dusty old box with yellowed scribbled black dots. His name at the top.
“Hey, Dad wrote some songs! Cool!”
“Hey, cool! I bet we could get $20 at the estate sale for those!”
Shhh! If you listen carefully, you can hear his dreams being flushed down the toilet. Out of all the successes, the accolades, the honors – you know he went to his grave with this thorn stuck in his side . . .
He never fucking got around to recording his songs.
He meant to. Oh, he tried. Promised himself. Time and time again. Honest. Next week. I will do it. I promise.
Promise broken. Dream crushed.
I don’t blame the kids. Or his wife if she’s still around. Hell, I don’t even blame the buck toothed fourth cousin with a third nipple – or whomever sold his music.
It’s Famous Actor Guy’s fault.
His half baked relatives sold it because it wasn’t presented to them in a state that screamed, “This is important shit and you should always keep it because it meant a lot to me and it’s really, really good.” Third Nipple Cousin went with the cliché – “If it looks like shit, don’t eat it. Sell it for $20.”
It’s always been about presentation. You send out a shitty looking demo and people think shitty music is on it. If your band doesn’t present itself with the right attitude, lighting, makeup and properly front packed tight jeans – you’re next stop is Boise. At the bowling alley. Cleaning balls, bitch. Had our famous actor gotten around to recording his stuff – pressed the albums, with requisite sexy girl on the cover, impeccable recording cut into the vinyl, then his kids would have known it was something. Known it was worthy of posterity. Worthy of honor and respect. Worthy of keeping.
It got me to thinking.
What’s the state of my music now? And then, only because I care so much . . . What’s the state of yours? If you or I were to die tonight, would what we leave behind? Would our music be treated as trash or treasure?
I’m in a kind of halfway house situation on that front. (And a few others, badda bing!) I’ve managed to get a few CDs out there. I’ve documented some stuff that I think is worthy. And then there’s the rest of it. There’s good stuff in there but I haven’t put it in any kind of order so anyone could ever find it. My kids will chuck it. What else are they supposed to do? All those boxes and boxes of crap lying around when we’re laid in the ground. They’ll be overwhelmed. Not with grief, but because you left all this shit for them to clean up! And I’m not even counting the porn! At least they can give that to your gardener who will love it. No, I’m talking about your music. A lot of your music. You’re dreaming if you think cute little Sissy is going to store that shit for decades. I’ve got thousands of, really, dare I say, brilliant underscore cues sitting around on backups, manuscript paper, yellow stickies, cassettes, CDs. I’m not fooling myself. Years from now, my kids aren’t going to curl up on the couch with my grandkids and listen to Dead Grandpa’s score from episode 312 of some cable show they’ve never heard of. No, out of guilt they’ll probably move this steaming pile of intellect from place to place until inconvenience outweighs guilt. Then they’ll rent one of those huge, double ass wide dumpsters and heave the shit in. Jewel cases all cracked and split. CDs glistening in the sun wet with the sex lube they awkwardly found. Scores stained with left over Red Bulls I never got to finish. Rusty coke spoon. Kim Kardashian photos. Days later at the dump, some homeless guy will pick through my music. He’ll stare and study them. Flip through the CDs like he’s at Amoeba. Ponder the names and titles. And then come to the shocking realization that even he can’t come up with a reason to keep it.
Unless you’re famous – like Hank Mancini kind of famous – where some unknown university in Bum Fuck Egypt sends a low level grad student to cart your skidmarks on Hanes back to a shrine in the desert, you’re fucked Maestro.
It hurts to think about it. I know, because we’ve all spent countless hours bleeding rectally to get done what needs to be done. Nobody works harder than the modern composer. Day in, day out. Always trying to do our fucking best. All that wasted time driving across town to blow yet another producer hoping to get that movie or network series. Long nights searching for the lost chord only to end up with the brown note.
Yes. Believe it or not, worthy or not, brilliant or not, there is music that will be thrown out upon our demise. Stepped on, shit on and burnt.
But there is also our “Best of” music. The special stuff. The stuff you love. Somewhere, in everyone’s studio, lies the good shit. It doesn’t matter if it’s a cue from Baywatch or a commercial for Depends™, you know the good shit. We owe it to ourselves to be gathering, planning, recording, packaging and storing our good stuff. Preserving it. Protecting it. Guaranteeing its future.
I’m making a promise I really hope to keep. You should too. All of us should each make a “Best of” CD. If need be, we should make ten different ones. A lifetime box set if you will. Package them up nice. Write some liner notes. Put a picture of yourself on the cover – no matter how fucking ugly you are. No one will ever throw away a “Best of” CD. The title demands, “Keep me around forever.” Go all the way – dedicate it to those who follow in your gene pool.
And that album you’ve always said you would record? Record it! Just fucking do it. Don’t take another job just so you can put a big screen plasma in the guest room shitter. No more excuses. Make it incredible. Call in every favor. Pay a really great graphic designer to make it as beautiful visually as it is sonically. Sell it, don’t sell it. It doesn’t matter. Money is not important. Posterity is important. Respecting your music is important. Documenting your talent is important. Documenting your place and your contribution on this earth is important.
And when you’re long gone, and when one of your loved ones is reluctantly picking through your crap, when their hands land on something you made, something you created, something that would not have existed had you not lived and breathed here on this beautiful planet, they will stop what they are doing. They will play your music. Your music will move them and they will close their eyes and they will think of you. They will thank you. They will not throw it away. They will keep it. And they will listen to it every now and again and they will remember you.
And that is better than $20 at some fucking garage sale.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
20 YEAR VETERAN GEAR SLUT SELLS EVERYTHING; STATUS DEMOTED TO JUST SLUT
Wife On All Time Euphoric High As Chronic Compulsive Knob-Turner Directs Bored Fingers Towards Her
You read it right. I’m done. I just force quit a life long passion. An obsession. My quest of owning every single piece of cool music gear ever made is done. Blasphemer! The end is near! (perfect timing since the end of the music business is here too – cool!) But, really, I think it’s just the beginning. Who woulda thought there’s a life to be lived out there? A world full of wonder. A world without a room full of musical equipment. The search for the Holy Grail is over.
Not that the Holy Grail has been found, mind you, just that I’ve stopped looking for it.
I’ve stopped flipping through Keyboard, Remix and Electronic Musician magazines like a 16 year old with a Playboy and a chubby. Yes, the articles are still informative. The reviews a must. But that craving, that drooling stare at all those gorgeous spreads of sexy new gear? They are nothing to me now. I’m above it all – like a drummer who can read music. I’ve sold all my gear. Not most of it. All of it. It sounds like I quit the music business. I didn’t. I downsized. I cleaned house. And I’m a richer($) man for it. (snort, hike up britches.)
A month or two back, I actually stopped writing music. Took stock, assessed and analyzed my work method in the studio. A full day just for that. I noted how much I used different pieces of gear. I wrote down how often I repeated certain tasks. I contemplated a world without so many buttons, knobs, switches and keys. A simpler life. A life as head music Quaker in LA.
As composers and musicians, we are on the brink of a new age. The time has come to break our chains. We are free! I say to you, rise up. Unburden yourself from unused gear and over abundance. I did it. And now I have more time for the important things in life - family, friends, socially responsible drinking.
Is it scary? Even more than that 10 Day Thai Sex Travel Tour you booked yourself on.
Are our collective dick sizes (girls graciously included here) tied to how much gear we have? Only from our own skewed personal perspective.
Should our talent be measured by our latest and greatest finance-threatening acquisition? Be brave – don’t fall into that trap.
Does it go against everything you’ve been taught as a cutting edge musician? Stabs it in the heart. Dead.
Does it make those pictures of Keith Emerson in front of a thousand keyboards kind of silly? No. Well, kind of. Those pics document another age. Another time when abundance and complexity were the norm. It’s called THE PAST. Today, we can be leaner and meaner. It is time to be the Lara Flynn Boyle of music.
Instead of looking at it as “what I have to lose” we must think of it as “what I have to gain.” And that, is FREEDOM!
Kick The Shit Out 101:
Took stock of the synths I had. Rolands, Korgs, Yamahas, Nords, Emus. Yes, each in their own right has served me well over the years. There are killer sounds on each and every one of them, but as I noted how often and for what purpose I was using these, I realized it wasn’t much as I’d thought. I ordered some new soft synths to cover those; Arturia’s Jupiter-8V, FabFilter’s Twin, all of the Rob Papen stuff, the Native Instruments bundle. (Complaint Alert!™ – why isn’t every great classic synth a plugin already? I’ll buy ‘em all! Here I stand cash in hand, waiting, wondering . . . ) Hey – I need some advice, should I drop $2500 for the newest hardware synth or buy 12 plugin synths for the same amount?
Added Bonus Alert™ - I was also able to hurl my four (4) midi interfaces (i.e. doorstops).
Next, my beloved Yamaha 02R96 mixer. Impeccable design. Easy to use. Handles every format under the sun. When we’d switch from Protools at 96k back to my normal 24bit 44.1 working mode – it was literally a push of the button. But again, when I noticed how much I was actually utilizing its incredible features – nada. I was already moving towards “mixing in the box” and hadn’t accepted it. Toss it. Because it’s like the rule in your closet – if you haven’t worn it in over a year, you’re not going to wear it (that doesn’t mean the leather pants. Because if you even claim to be in the music business you better have a pair hanging in there or you’re just a poser. And preferably they should be 2 sizes too small – you know, the size you USED to wear. The size you swear you will wear again as soon as you figure out a way to quit that Popeye’s dependence.) And what about that big ol’ Mackie Midi Controller? Chuck it. One word. Faderport. Or AlphaTrack. Or Goatse. Why do I need 8 faders? If I’m controlling all of my BG vox, I’ve already bussed them to a single fader in Logic. Now I control them with my middle finger on my only fader. (Please note aggressive physical insult thrown towards all manufacturers of multi fader midi controller systems. In your face!)
Next up – cutting the dark side completely from my life. I don’t mean Scientology. I mean I had a rack of 6 PCs running a variety of things from Gigastudio to Kontakt 2 to Forte running various VST plugins. Again, I found, at most I was using only one or two of these at a time. My new “Titanium Testicle” Mac Pro 8 core can handle that! Fuck Microsoft - again! Had them taken away - like Britney’s children.
I barreled on like a spring cleaning suburban mom amped up on prescription meds.
Video playback. WTF. DVD. DAT. VHS. Video switcher between all this caveman shit. My Canopus box. Now with each job, I tell them “Quicktime” – that’s it – no other choice. And they do it. Because I said so. Or I asked politely. 42” Plasma TV - Poof! – I bought two 30” Mac monitors.
Cassette (sure, I still had one - in case by brother showed up with that Honk “Five Summer Stories” soundtrack and we wanted to reminisce over some medical cannabis.) CD Player – why?
And suddenly, it all began to snowball. Multiple Big Ben word clocks – don’t need ‘em. Blackburst generator – unnecessary. Computer monitor switcher for all those damn PCs – Can you spell Goodwill donation and exaggerated tax write off??!!!
Furman patchbays! I was tired of shaving them every week. Ewww! Cables? How 2006! Cabling of every type and description on the planet running the perimeter of the studio. Hundreds of feet of this shit – vanished.
In addition to Protools I was running a MOTU 2408. Finished! What was I thinking with all this stuff?
I bought big “Hungry Man” size drives for the computer. Got rid of all those small “Fun Size” ones I was collecting over the years.
And I stood there looking at a near empty machine room. A lonely Apogee Rosetta 800, Furman Power Conditioner (with five o’clock shadow) and my Mac Pro. Oh, and my beloved Neve mic pres. And instead of feeling like the boy with the smallest dick in the locker room, I felt liberated. I felt comforted.
First Glaring Conundrum™ - whether I should put a stripper pole or a wine rack in the rest of the machine room. Vote online now!
I started working. Yes, there were some moments of pause where I sat there and said “OK, I used to do it this way, I need to find a new way.” And I did. And it all felt rather new and different. Fresh and exciting, if I may be so bold as to quote Kool & The Gang. (BTW™, is that bass part loud enough in that mix or what!!!???) The whole writing experience seemed, well, actually more about writing than technology. I got a call the following day about some changes the producer (wanker) wanted to the music I had written (already perfect). I toweled off from the pool, and opened the sequence – WHAM! – it was up in seconds. My old setup template took FOREVER! to load. All that extraneous bullshit needed to make all that extraneous bullshit work = sit around with thumb up ass. I hit play on the keyboard – and I’ll be damned. It sounded exactly like it did yesterday. I don’t know about you, but in my previous setup when I brought a mix back up it sounded “kinda” like it did before. There’s no instant recall when you have 15 other sound sources going through 3 other devices in addition to the rumored “total recall” elements in your computer. I would have had to spend valuable drinking time, tweaking the mix to get it right and then making the changes. This time, I muted the unwanted (although very hip and really, quite musical Autotuned chainsaw & trombone duet) sound the producer “hated.” Hit “Bounce” and in 90 seconds was emailing the revised cue back to them and heading back to the pool where 3 supermodels with margaritas awaited me and my thong.
This never would have happened in my old, archaic, complicated, clusterfuck™ system. There’s a rule, it’s not Murphy’s but some other Irish dude’s, and it says “The more shit you have, the more shit breaks.” I might be paraphrasing. And shit did break – or kinda not work – or got a buzz in it – or wouldn’t read midi today – or – or – or. And I would waste time. I would stop writing. I would don my NTGH (Nerdy Tech Guy Hat™) and attempt to fix it. I was convinced I couldn’t live without this piece of gear. When it got bad, I gave up and called in a tech guy who wears a VSNTGH (Very Special Nerdy Tech Guy Hat™). I shit money into a bucket for him while he tried to solve said problem. And I wasn’t writing.
I sold all of my gear. Got lots of money for it. Enough money that I could have bought another complete system like mine and had it standing by – just in case my main system blew up. Fortunately, I was smart enough to invest it all in hookers and blow. C’mon, we’re in the music business – who needs a savings account? I’m gonna write a hit! Like Hey Jude or some catchy shit like that.
Now there’s nothing short of an infuriatingly itchy STD or a massive earthquake that can keep me from working.
OK, I’ll admit, if you took the guitars and my keyboard controller out of the studio, my new setup looks like I do graphics for a living. And we all know how much graphic designers don’t get laid. Who cares? When I sit here, it feels like this system is all about the music. The notes. The sound. It ain’t about mixed marriages of PC/Mac, or Protools/Logic, or Midi/LAN/Word Clock/Lightpipe group sex animosity.
This is the future and it’s yours. Sell your shit. You don’t need it. From now on, the only things I will buy are new plugins and a new Mac. Oh, and tequila. My yearly expenditure on gear probably dropped 90%. Think of it as a pay raise.
Go forth and write – and give yourself a pay raise.
P.S.
Helpful Tip Alert!™ ™ symbol created with Option 2 – cool! Use it often and for no apparent reason.
You read it right. I’m done. I just force quit a life long passion. An obsession. My quest of owning every single piece of cool music gear ever made is done. Blasphemer! The end is near! (perfect timing since the end of the music business is here too – cool!) But, really, I think it’s just the beginning. Who woulda thought there’s a life to be lived out there? A world full of wonder. A world without a room full of musical equipment. The search for the Holy Grail is over.
Not that the Holy Grail has been found, mind you, just that I’ve stopped looking for it.
I’ve stopped flipping through Keyboard, Remix and Electronic Musician magazines like a 16 year old with a Playboy and a chubby. Yes, the articles are still informative. The reviews a must. But that craving, that drooling stare at all those gorgeous spreads of sexy new gear? They are nothing to me now. I’m above it all – like a drummer who can read music. I’ve sold all my gear. Not most of it. All of it. It sounds like I quit the music business. I didn’t. I downsized. I cleaned house. And I’m a richer($) man for it. (snort, hike up britches.)
A month or two back, I actually stopped writing music. Took stock, assessed and analyzed my work method in the studio. A full day just for that. I noted how much I used different pieces of gear. I wrote down how often I repeated certain tasks. I contemplated a world without so many buttons, knobs, switches and keys. A simpler life. A life as head music Quaker in LA.
As composers and musicians, we are on the brink of a new age. The time has come to break our chains. We are free! I say to you, rise up. Unburden yourself from unused gear and over abundance. I did it. And now I have more time for the important things in life - family, friends, socially responsible drinking.
Is it scary? Even more than that 10 Day Thai Sex Travel Tour you booked yourself on.
Are our collective dick sizes (girls graciously included here) tied to how much gear we have? Only from our own skewed personal perspective.
Should our talent be measured by our latest and greatest finance-threatening acquisition? Be brave – don’t fall into that trap.
Does it go against everything you’ve been taught as a cutting edge musician? Stabs it in the heart. Dead.
Does it make those pictures of Keith Emerson in front of a thousand keyboards kind of silly? No. Well, kind of. Those pics document another age. Another time when abundance and complexity were the norm. It’s called THE PAST. Today, we can be leaner and meaner. It is time to be the Lara Flynn Boyle of music.
Instead of looking at it as “what I have to lose” we must think of it as “what I have to gain.” And that, is FREEDOM!
Kick The Shit Out 101:
Took stock of the synths I had. Rolands, Korgs, Yamahas, Nords, Emus. Yes, each in their own right has served me well over the years. There are killer sounds on each and every one of them, but as I noted how often and for what purpose I was using these, I realized it wasn’t much as I’d thought. I ordered some new soft synths to cover those; Arturia’s Jupiter-8V, FabFilter’s Twin, all of the Rob Papen stuff, the Native Instruments bundle. (Complaint Alert!™ – why isn’t every great classic synth a plugin already? I’ll buy ‘em all! Here I stand cash in hand, waiting, wondering . . . ) Hey – I need some advice, should I drop $2500 for the newest hardware synth or buy 12 plugin synths for the same amount?
Added Bonus Alert™ - I was also able to hurl my four (4) midi interfaces (i.e. doorstops).
Next, my beloved Yamaha 02R96 mixer. Impeccable design. Easy to use. Handles every format under the sun. When we’d switch from Protools at 96k back to my normal 24bit 44.1 working mode – it was literally a push of the button. But again, when I noticed how much I was actually utilizing its incredible features – nada. I was already moving towards “mixing in the box” and hadn’t accepted it. Toss it. Because it’s like the rule in your closet – if you haven’t worn it in over a year, you’re not going to wear it (that doesn’t mean the leather pants. Because if you even claim to be in the music business you better have a pair hanging in there or you’re just a poser. And preferably they should be 2 sizes too small – you know, the size you USED to wear. The size you swear you will wear again as soon as you figure out a way to quit that Popeye’s dependence.) And what about that big ol’ Mackie Midi Controller? Chuck it. One word. Faderport. Or AlphaTrack. Or Goatse. Why do I need 8 faders? If I’m controlling all of my BG vox, I’ve already bussed them to a single fader in Logic. Now I control them with my middle finger on my only fader. (Please note aggressive physical insult thrown towards all manufacturers of multi fader midi controller systems. In your face!)
Next up – cutting the dark side completely from my life. I don’t mean Scientology. I mean I had a rack of 6 PCs running a variety of things from Gigastudio to Kontakt 2 to Forte running various VST plugins. Again, I found, at most I was using only one or two of these at a time. My new “Titanium Testicle” Mac Pro 8 core can handle that! Fuck Microsoft - again! Had them taken away - like Britney’s children.
I barreled on like a spring cleaning suburban mom amped up on prescription meds.
Video playback. WTF. DVD. DAT. VHS. Video switcher between all this caveman shit. My Canopus box. Now with each job, I tell them “Quicktime” – that’s it – no other choice. And they do it. Because I said so. Or I asked politely. 42” Plasma TV - Poof! – I bought two 30” Mac monitors.
Cassette (sure, I still had one - in case by brother showed up with that Honk “Five Summer Stories” soundtrack and we wanted to reminisce over some medical cannabis.) CD Player – why?
And suddenly, it all began to snowball. Multiple Big Ben word clocks – don’t need ‘em. Blackburst generator – unnecessary. Computer monitor switcher for all those damn PCs – Can you spell Goodwill donation and exaggerated tax write off??!!!
Furman patchbays! I was tired of shaving them every week. Ewww! Cables? How 2006! Cabling of every type and description on the planet running the perimeter of the studio. Hundreds of feet of this shit – vanished.
In addition to Protools I was running a MOTU 2408. Finished! What was I thinking with all this stuff?
I bought big “Hungry Man” size drives for the computer. Got rid of all those small “Fun Size” ones I was collecting over the years.
And I stood there looking at a near empty machine room. A lonely Apogee Rosetta 800, Furman Power Conditioner (with five o’clock shadow) and my Mac Pro. Oh, and my beloved Neve mic pres. And instead of feeling like the boy with the smallest dick in the locker room, I felt liberated. I felt comforted.
First Glaring Conundrum™ - whether I should put a stripper pole or a wine rack in the rest of the machine room. Vote online now!
I started working. Yes, there were some moments of pause where I sat there and said “OK, I used to do it this way, I need to find a new way.” And I did. And it all felt rather new and different. Fresh and exciting, if I may be so bold as to quote Kool & The Gang. (BTW™, is that bass part loud enough in that mix or what!!!???) The whole writing experience seemed, well, actually more about writing than technology. I got a call the following day about some changes the producer (wanker) wanted to the music I had written (already perfect). I toweled off from the pool, and opened the sequence – WHAM! – it was up in seconds. My old setup template took FOREVER! to load. All that extraneous bullshit needed to make all that extraneous bullshit work = sit around with thumb up ass. I hit play on the keyboard – and I’ll be damned. It sounded exactly like it did yesterday. I don’t know about you, but in my previous setup when I brought a mix back up it sounded “kinda” like it did before. There’s no instant recall when you have 15 other sound sources going through 3 other devices in addition to the rumored “total recall” elements in your computer. I would have had to spend valuable drinking time, tweaking the mix to get it right and then making the changes. This time, I muted the unwanted (although very hip and really, quite musical Autotuned chainsaw & trombone duet) sound the producer “hated.” Hit “Bounce” and in 90 seconds was emailing the revised cue back to them and heading back to the pool where 3 supermodels with margaritas awaited me and my thong.
This never would have happened in my old, archaic, complicated, clusterfuck™ system. There’s a rule, it’s not Murphy’s but some other Irish dude’s, and it says “The more shit you have, the more shit breaks.” I might be paraphrasing. And shit did break – or kinda not work – or got a buzz in it – or wouldn’t read midi today – or – or – or. And I would waste time. I would stop writing. I would don my NTGH (Nerdy Tech Guy Hat™) and attempt to fix it. I was convinced I couldn’t live without this piece of gear. When it got bad, I gave up and called in a tech guy who wears a VSNTGH (Very Special Nerdy Tech Guy Hat™). I shit money into a bucket for him while he tried to solve said problem. And I wasn’t writing.
I sold all of my gear. Got lots of money for it. Enough money that I could have bought another complete system like mine and had it standing by – just in case my main system blew up. Fortunately, I was smart enough to invest it all in hookers and blow. C’mon, we’re in the music business – who needs a savings account? I’m gonna write a hit! Like Hey Jude or some catchy shit like that.
Now there’s nothing short of an infuriatingly itchy STD or a massive earthquake that can keep me from working.
OK, I’ll admit, if you took the guitars and my keyboard controller out of the studio, my new setup looks like I do graphics for a living. And we all know how much graphic designers don’t get laid. Who cares? When I sit here, it feels like this system is all about the music. The notes. The sound. It ain’t about mixed marriages of PC/Mac, or Protools/Logic, or Midi/LAN/Word Clock/Lightpipe group sex animosity.
This is the future and it’s yours. Sell your shit. You don’t need it. From now on, the only things I will buy are new plugins and a new Mac. Oh, and tequila. My yearly expenditure on gear probably dropped 90%. Think of it as a pay raise.
Go forth and write – and give yourself a pay raise.
P.S.
Helpful Tip Alert!™ ™ symbol created with Option 2 – cool! Use it often and for no apparent reason.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
A Kinky Threesome Ends Amid Name Calling, Tears And No Regrets
A long, long time ago, I thought I had it all. I was shacked up with two of the hottest songbirds on the market. Oh man, was it good. The three of us tangled up together, unable to tell where one started and the other began. Late nights pouring our hearts and souls out. Exploring every nook and cranny. Pushing our limits. Day after day, night after night. I diddled and experimented with them till I was spent. I felt like a sheik with his harem. There was nothing these high price gals wouldn’t do. I broke every rule, bent every cable, and they loved me for it. All of it without so much as a safe word. Exciting. Dangerous. Potentially deadly.
Everybody wanted what I had. Only a chosen few were unlucky enough to get it. You see, I would love to paint a rosy picture consisting solely of kinky authorization sessions and blissful musical climaxes together, but, alas, it was not to be so. There were issues. Serious issues. Who was I to think you could put two sexy, top-of-the-line supermodels in the same room and expect them to play well together? Sultry vixens can be vicious. First, one would sulk and threaten to never put out again. Then the other would act up intermittently, leaving me unsure of actually pulling off yet another tonally satisfying intercourse. And here’s why.
There’s something fundamentally different in their coding, man. Avid and Apple hate each other. Sure, on the surface they try and make it look like everything is hunky-dory but deep down, oh, these guys hate each other. Like drummers used to hate LinnDrum machines. An ugly, vindictive hate.
As their bickering and fighting increased over the years, I became less and less willing to coax them back together. The results of these “reconciliations” were less than optimal. At one low point, when I just couldn’t take it anymore, I screamed at them. Called them dirty, foul, disgusting names. I’m not proud of it. I threatened to throw them out. Kick both of these harlots to the curb. Yes, it was partially my fault. I had stupidly brought home the latest in computer porn, Apple OS X. What was I thinking? I knew they’d get pissed. I knew they’d lock me out of the studio, make me sleep on the Korg Workstation in order to deliver. Pure chaos. Their petty arguing and posturing had pushed me to my limit. I couldn’t take it anymore. It took multiple counseling sessions with studio tech extraordinaire Bob Rice and a couple of thousand bucks but we kissed and made up.
But it was never the same. People hold grudges. Some people just don’t like forgiving past indiscretions. Sure enough, only six months later, all hell broke loose. This was back when BT, another delusional composer like me, hell bent on trying to pull off this musical ménage a trios, said in Keyboard Magazine that he’d fly cross the country and pay more than top dollar for someone’s Protools/Logic rig on the spot if anyone had one running that wouldn’t crash. No one ever took him up on it! Crash after crash after kernel panic after kernel panic. I contemplated taking a hammer and mutilating their pristine interfaces. It was beyond frustrating. It was a million miles beyond unbelievably unfucking unbearable.
One night, the three of us were alone in the studio. We’d had a couple so we were getting along. I was using my best moves. I was being gentle. I was being careful not to offend. I did nothing that could have been remotely construed as in appropriate or “out of the social norm.” And wham! Ms. Princess Protools decides she’s not going to let uppity little Miss Logic slut recognize her hard body badunkadunk hardware anymore. “You can look at me right here in the equipment rack, bitch, but I will NOT permit your copyright-protected protocol attempts at greasy digital access to penetrate my most private of areas!” And with that came a grinding halt to my income stream. Late night calls to tech support, technicians, friends and even Jesus himself (albeit “in vain” at points), could not rectify what had become the beginning of the end of a very tumultuous relationship.
What a sucker I am. I cried for a couple of days. Took long hot showers curled up in a ball on the tiled floor. Buckets of tears later, I turned all of the gear back on again. It worked. And so I struggled through. Again. I dealt with it. Again. For another couple of years. It was tough going most of the time. Occasionally, I was painfully prick teased by the system running without incident for hours, even half days, at a time. There were moments of karmic harmonic bliss. Fleeting moments when I felt the nectar of technology couldn’t taste any sweeter. But undoubtedly, whenever the job was on the line, whenever it was the absolute worst time for the shit to overflow, I was swimming in it.
A couple of months ago, I decided I’d had enough. I wanted peace and harmony in my studio. I wanted to put away the chainsaws and light some damn candles. I wanted to use software that likes each other. Software that gets along. Can’t we all just get along? I was forced to choose. I was given an ultimatum. Backed into a corner. Bitch slapped into the reality that these companies do not care one fuck about the greater good of music. Do not care for one brief second about creating a situation that allows a composer to create at the top of his or her game. They insist you pick one of them. They insist you choose. It’s like pre-midi days when several manufactures were reluctant to allow other synths to violently penetrate their sacred ports. And what happened to them when they finally opened their manufactured legs? They sold more shit than ever before. Because it allowed all of us to do what we do unencumbered by their need to dominate.
No, it wasn’t entirely Ms. Protools fault. I love her dearly. She’s a smooth running, sweet singing hussy. The dictatorship of Emperor Steve of the kingdom of Apple aren’t 100% to blame either. They both make great tools. But they’re both playing the same cruel game on the side. Each one of them wants to rule the world and will suffer no competitors. Kill or be killed. I’ve got the scars to prove it.
I had to choose. Do you marry for sex or brains? Money or love? Complicated as fuck environment setup or plugins that cost 3 times more than the other formats? With the switch to Intel chips and Leopard, I could see into my troubled future and knew I had to pull the plug on one of them.
I went with Uncle Steve. The Big Apple. Current ruler of music. I had to. For Christ’s sake, I’ve been married to Logic longer than my wife! Protools will live a long and healthy life without me. They are the de facto standard. I just don’t need them right now everyday of the week. I’ve got an Mbox sitting on a shelf here so I can deliver in PT when necessary.
So now I’m running the Apogee Symphony, only using Audio Unit plugs. I added more packages like the Sonnox Oxford suite of things to cover stuff I really missed from PT. Yes, I miss Impact but Inflator does some serious signal boosting damage. Yes, I had to wait until the brilliant SoundToys effects were available in AU. Since I’m on an Intel Mac now, I’m forced to get by without Spectrasonics Trilogy and Atmosphere but how the hell long am I suppose to honor our marriage vows and not fool around on the side? Hey Eric! WTF? I’m sorry but I got a little tipsy a few times, got a little randy and loaded up some other developer’s pads (like the amazing Rob Papen synths) - I didn’t want to but you said you’d meet me at the bar later for a drink and some updated plugins but you never showed and I had to get this thing done, and well . . . Marriages have been ruined for less!
I’m happy now. Things run smoothly. My life is simpler. I download lots of pictures of kitty cats and pretty flowers.
Do I miss the wild and debauched times? The “hanging from the rafters” crazy out of my mind nights? That feeling building inside you that makes you realize you’re capable of destroying $30,000 worth of gear in a rage and not care?
Now, when my wife tucks me into bed at night, I have a smile on my face. I didn’t crash today. Not once. And that, my friends, to my ears, is beautiful music.
SP
Everybody wanted what I had. Only a chosen few were unlucky enough to get it. You see, I would love to paint a rosy picture consisting solely of kinky authorization sessions and blissful musical climaxes together, but, alas, it was not to be so. There were issues. Serious issues. Who was I to think you could put two sexy, top-of-the-line supermodels in the same room and expect them to play well together? Sultry vixens can be vicious. First, one would sulk and threaten to never put out again. Then the other would act up intermittently, leaving me unsure of actually pulling off yet another tonally satisfying intercourse. And here’s why.
There’s something fundamentally different in their coding, man. Avid and Apple hate each other. Sure, on the surface they try and make it look like everything is hunky-dory but deep down, oh, these guys hate each other. Like drummers used to hate LinnDrum machines. An ugly, vindictive hate.
As their bickering and fighting increased over the years, I became less and less willing to coax them back together. The results of these “reconciliations” were less than optimal. At one low point, when I just couldn’t take it anymore, I screamed at them. Called them dirty, foul, disgusting names. I’m not proud of it. I threatened to throw them out. Kick both of these harlots to the curb. Yes, it was partially my fault. I had stupidly brought home the latest in computer porn, Apple OS X. What was I thinking? I knew they’d get pissed. I knew they’d lock me out of the studio, make me sleep on the Korg Workstation in order to deliver. Pure chaos. Their petty arguing and posturing had pushed me to my limit. I couldn’t take it anymore. It took multiple counseling sessions with studio tech extraordinaire Bob Rice and a couple of thousand bucks but we kissed and made up.
But it was never the same. People hold grudges. Some people just don’t like forgiving past indiscretions. Sure enough, only six months later, all hell broke loose. This was back when BT, another delusional composer like me, hell bent on trying to pull off this musical ménage a trios, said in Keyboard Magazine that he’d fly cross the country and pay more than top dollar for someone’s Protools/Logic rig on the spot if anyone had one running that wouldn’t crash. No one ever took him up on it! Crash after crash after kernel panic after kernel panic. I contemplated taking a hammer and mutilating their pristine interfaces. It was beyond frustrating. It was a million miles beyond unbelievably unfucking unbearable.
One night, the three of us were alone in the studio. We’d had a couple so we were getting along. I was using my best moves. I was being gentle. I was being careful not to offend. I did nothing that could have been remotely construed as in appropriate or “out of the social norm.” And wham! Ms. Princess Protools decides she’s not going to let uppity little Miss Logic slut recognize her hard body badunkadunk hardware anymore. “You can look at me right here in the equipment rack, bitch, but I will NOT permit your copyright-protected protocol attempts at greasy digital access to penetrate my most private of areas!” And with that came a grinding halt to my income stream. Late night calls to tech support, technicians, friends and even Jesus himself (albeit “in vain” at points), could not rectify what had become the beginning of the end of a very tumultuous relationship.
What a sucker I am. I cried for a couple of days. Took long hot showers curled up in a ball on the tiled floor. Buckets of tears later, I turned all of the gear back on again. It worked. And so I struggled through. Again. I dealt with it. Again. For another couple of years. It was tough going most of the time. Occasionally, I was painfully prick teased by the system running without incident for hours, even half days, at a time. There were moments of karmic harmonic bliss. Fleeting moments when I felt the nectar of technology couldn’t taste any sweeter. But undoubtedly, whenever the job was on the line, whenever it was the absolute worst time for the shit to overflow, I was swimming in it.
A couple of months ago, I decided I’d had enough. I wanted peace and harmony in my studio. I wanted to put away the chainsaws and light some damn candles. I wanted to use software that likes each other. Software that gets along. Can’t we all just get along? I was forced to choose. I was given an ultimatum. Backed into a corner. Bitch slapped into the reality that these companies do not care one fuck about the greater good of music. Do not care for one brief second about creating a situation that allows a composer to create at the top of his or her game. They insist you pick one of them. They insist you choose. It’s like pre-midi days when several manufactures were reluctant to allow other synths to violently penetrate their sacred ports. And what happened to them when they finally opened their manufactured legs? They sold more shit than ever before. Because it allowed all of us to do what we do unencumbered by their need to dominate.
No, it wasn’t entirely Ms. Protools fault. I love her dearly. She’s a smooth running, sweet singing hussy. The dictatorship of Emperor Steve of the kingdom of Apple aren’t 100% to blame either. They both make great tools. But they’re both playing the same cruel game on the side. Each one of them wants to rule the world and will suffer no competitors. Kill or be killed. I’ve got the scars to prove it.
I had to choose. Do you marry for sex or brains? Money or love? Complicated as fuck environment setup or plugins that cost 3 times more than the other formats? With the switch to Intel chips and Leopard, I could see into my troubled future and knew I had to pull the plug on one of them.
I went with Uncle Steve. The Big Apple. Current ruler of music. I had to. For Christ’s sake, I’ve been married to Logic longer than my wife! Protools will live a long and healthy life without me. They are the de facto standard. I just don’t need them right now everyday of the week. I’ve got an Mbox sitting on a shelf here so I can deliver in PT when necessary.
So now I’m running the Apogee Symphony, only using Audio Unit plugs. I added more packages like the Sonnox Oxford suite of things to cover stuff I really missed from PT. Yes, I miss Impact but Inflator does some serious signal boosting damage. Yes, I had to wait until the brilliant SoundToys effects were available in AU. Since I’m on an Intel Mac now, I’m forced to get by without Spectrasonics Trilogy and Atmosphere but how the hell long am I suppose to honor our marriage vows and not fool around on the side? Hey Eric! WTF? I’m sorry but I got a little tipsy a few times, got a little randy and loaded up some other developer’s pads (like the amazing Rob Papen synths) - I didn’t want to but you said you’d meet me at the bar later for a drink and some updated plugins but you never showed and I had to get this thing done, and well . . . Marriages have been ruined for less!
I’m happy now. Things run smoothly. My life is simpler. I download lots of pictures of kitty cats and pretty flowers.
Do I miss the wild and debauched times? The “hanging from the rafters” crazy out of my mind nights? That feeling building inside you that makes you realize you’re capable of destroying $30,000 worth of gear in a rage and not care?
Now, when my wife tucks me into bed at night, I have a smile on my face. I didn’t crash today. Not once. And that, my friends, to my ears, is beautiful music.
SP
Friday, November 2, 2007
How To Build An Orchestra And Live To Tell About It
I have been complaining (a lot and mostly to myself) about the lack of useable support for orchestral libraries. The massive amount of hours each of us has spent experimenting, learning, reading, and listening, in a futile effort to create the optimal orchestral template is staggering. The outrageous cost of the sample libraries themselves pales in comparison to the cost of our “wisdom.” I’ll pay any amount (and I think I already have) just to get something that sounds great and works.
None of us could ever look, with pained, exasperated faces, to the supreme sound developers for help. There wasn’t any. “Everyone uses our products in a different way so there’s no point in us trying to explain it.” I actually saw (drugs may have been involved) “Good luck trying to make this shit work all at the same time” written in 2 point on the back of one sample library box. The Garritan Personal Orchestral had the right idea, load up the orchestra and start writing. Unfortunately, I’m not a fan of the sound quality. I want great sounds and a basic template that I can fiddle with. What about it East West, VSL, Sonivox?
Well, I believe I have stumbled (drinking may have been involved) upon my (our) orchestral salvation. Piccolos at the ready!
Yesterday, I accidentally ended up at the VSL site and there, http://vsl.co.at/, like a pot of gold (blow) sitting in the middle of the street (console), were placed video tutorials on how to use their sounds. Maybe they’ve been there since Nixon, but I never got the email about it. No shit. It was almost like going to the Apple site with their really great video tours. Really well done, well-explained, clear, concise videos. It’s a three part series dissecting a composer’s (Christian Kardeis) piece of music – IN LOGIC! (extra bonus for all Logic users) – showing how all of the instruments were laid out, how to manipulate the sounds, how to load an entire orchestra. Almost everything you need to get working with a great sounding orchestra – hell, they even threw in a few orchestration/composition tips. (love what you did with the cembalo Christian) And as if that wasn’t enough (and all sample libraries feel they have already done enough just by making the stuff) . . . They’ve included a downloadable template – the exact piece of music that Christian worked on (sure it’s in Logic 7 but opened perfectly in Logic 8) (Performer, Sonar and Cubase available as well) – complete with the impulse responses he used (because as the voice over correctly states, “the sound of the room is almost as important as the sound itself.” Yep, the whole setup. One easy download. I put the impulse responses in their proper folders – I launched Christian’s template – and, like it was a product from Apple (more blatant stock price manipulation) – it worked! And now, as a customer, I was actually able to dig deep into the sequencer template and have a look at exactly how this guy was using their sounds. He busses instruments “pre fader” to adjust reverb; he controls volume and expression in the VSL player; see how he layered a portamento string patch on top of another string patch and with a flip of the mod wheel the strings beautifully scoop up to the next note. I dug deep enough into his template to find I was developing a little crush on him. (blush) Naturally, since none of us can ever refrain from making the world a better place by fucking with everything!!!!, I “fixed” some of Christian’s patches (matrices in VSL speak) – he had loaded just what he needed for his piece and only used the VSL Special Edition – and I need a more versatile setup than that (i.e. worthy of my stature), but it was a great start to explaining the VSL player and one very good way to build an orchestral setup. BTW, the Special Edition version really kicks ass. Under $500 and you’ve got 90% of a balls deep orchestra. Sure, my Appassionata Strings sounded bigger (and bigger is always better, right honey?) than the Special Ed strings – but the “short bus” version did the job admirably. Better than admirably. So don’t look down on them for their size and limitations, praise their “specialness.”
In short order, I built a killer orchestra in Logic 8. Yeah, I’m on an 8 core MacPro (blatant cock waving) with plus size model ram (12 gig) but I’m thankfully out of the “Kontakt 2 ram is low” pain in the ass issues and I’m writing music! (Note to self: writing music pays bills, dicking with templates and writing blogs does not!)
OK – yes, I still had to load a couple of Kontakt instances (begrudgingly) because damn EW had to go and make their French Horns sound soooooooo killer - big and blatty – (horn players with balls as big as their bells) the Ethel Mermans of the horn sample world - that I refuse to write another cue without them (same goes for their timpani) - (which, if I’m not mistaken, they sampled while they beat it with a 30 lb. sledge hammer). And then, just to prove once again that you never get everything you need for $10,000, EW chose to include the absolute worst woodwinds to counter these fine patches.
My pimped out template loads in 3:30 - just enough time to cruise by youporn.com to check on their beta version and report any bugs – and I’m ready to put in another 12 hour day behind the screen.
Is this nirvana? Is this the reason I got into music? No – that’s still chicks and drugs. But it is why I got into film and tv scoring. I prefer writing music to staring confusingly at a computer screen trying to figure out why Controller 67 won’t route my pedal volume to the filter bank controlling my vibrato on my slide whistle. Yes, you will change things in the template. Yes, you will substitute, add on, tweak, layer and finger fuck Christian’s template to your own liking/working style. But I tell you, within couple of hours, you will have a working knowledge of the VSL player and a damn decent sounding orchestra. And you’ll be writing music.
And after 10 years of trying and crying, don’t you think we all deserve that?
Scooter
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